Lessons from 40 days on the Daniel fast
Two months ago, Apostle Isi Igenegba convinced me that it was time to enter a period of deeper communion with God. This is what I learned along the way.
I am sorry for my absence in recent weeks.
Most of my attention has gone to family, taxes and pursuing a 40 day Daniel fast.
Right now, we find ourselves in Hong Kong, where we have just introduced our son to Michelle’s family. As I’m writing this, I sit at the desk of my late father-in-law, enjoying a panoramic view over Victoria Bay.
My son loves this city way more than I expected. He’s grown up in the Swedish countryside, but is absolutely chill in a world metropolis.
I’m totally baffled by it :-)
Michelle is walking around with her back looking like it was flogged, as she just saw an incredible bodyworker who found that she has tons of accumulated lactic acid from carrying our boy around.
Our son is a mama’s boy like I once was, and being his mum can be a physically demanding job. (“mama, carry!” are words heard often around these parts.)
No medical professional or body worker in all of Sweden would have told her what this lady said, and while I love the understanding of the body found in Chinese culture, it’s paradoxically hard to get clean, organic food here.
The demand for healthy foods of the type we eat at home must be very small, as organic yoghurt costs 4 times as much as in Sweden, and a pack of 6 organic eggs is around 10 USD.
What…the…heck?!
A week after arriving here, I ended my first ever 40-day Daniel fast.
I went through the fast to deepen with God, and to find more clarity about work & business in this upcoming season of escalating warfare.
The Daniel “fast” is a modified diet where we abstain from dairy, meat, alcohols, sugars, sweeteners, refined grains etc. for up to 40 days.
It has become popular with Christians seeking more clarity at life’s many junctures, and when Apostle Isi Igenegba urged Christians to undertake it on her Youtube channel, I felt called. (watch her video)
While it is tempting to seek validation for our fasting, spiritually oriented fasts should be kept on a need to know basis. They are not meant for social media posts or even casual conversation, but for intimacy between ourselves and God.
The Gospel of Matthew explains it this way:
16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
— Matthew 6:16–18
Imagine if my wife made great efforts to dress up and look amazing, only to go pursue attention from other men.
It would change my perception of her efforts, wouldn’t it?
It is similar with fasting: If you go on a fast to be close to God, yet end up seeking worldly validation for your efforts, you demonstrate where your loyalty lies.
As your fast is motivated by worldly desires, little treasure will accumulate in heaven from your efforts. Your physical gains may be absolutely worth it, but any spiritual gains will be undermined, if not eliminated.
The power of sacrifice
Abandoning the need for validation during a fast is a sacrifice. It can be hard to do so, as we will often want company and confirmation in our suffering.
Yet sacrifice and obedience are the currencies which yield deeper access to power and authority inside the field of any spiritual principality.
Many of these principalities require cruel sacrifices at their altars. When the ancient Israelites repeatedly turned their backs on God in order to burn their children as sacrifices to Moloch (Leviticus 18:21), they didn’t do that for shits and giggles, but because they would be rewarded for it.
But the God I know requests sacrifices such as my time, attention, pride, self-deception, social standing, bad habits or indulgent comforts.
Whenever we willingly make such offerings to align with God’s will, we indicate that we wish deeper intimacy, and through that sacrifice, God responds.
Perhaps He speaks through a vision, new creative energy, a miraculous cure, or the arrival of new people or resources into our lives.
Yet God cannot force us to love Him, lest he be a tyrant God. Therefore the courtship phase may take a while, and the connection may stabilize only when we start to truly trust in Him.
For me personally, this process is still ongoing, and that is why I chose to fast, which I believe expedites that process, and demonstrates through my sacrifice that I really want to be closer to Him.
Just be mindful that there are myriad principalities in spirit that want your worship, and many of them will posture as beings of false light to seduce you.
My experience with the fast
Over the first few weeks, I struggled with the diet. I had constant headaches, and didn’t feel well.
I was consuming lots of cashew nuts, ate plenty of lentil pasta, quinoa, fruit smoothies etc, yet my body was struggling.
I hosted my own birthday party while on the fast, and couldn’t eat what I cooked. I couldn’t eat the Easter lamb I prepared while visiting my mother nor could I share in delicious meals in the first 10 days of our stay in Hong Kong.
These moments were probably among the most potent parts of my fast, as I had to abstain from something I really valued.
In most of these settings, I found it difficult to know how to communicate around my unusual dietary choices.
Many inquired, and I would tell them I was on an alternative diet for a while. If they dug deeper, I let them know about the fast. While it is right to not seek validation for fasting, it is also right to speak the truth when requested.
(All of this felt a bit clumsy, and I hope to find more grace with it next time.)
Halfway through the fast, I came to question if it was irresponsible of me to continue. I had many things to take care of in life—e.g taxes and preparing the house and garden for departure—so I was tempted to shorten the fast to 21 days, as was Daniel’s chosen duration according to scripture.
I was close to making that decision, but last minute, I wondered “is this the enemy trying to sabotage me”? That possibility alone was enough to have me continue, and from that day onwards, the fast became effortless.
Lessons from my fast
This experience highlighted the fact that my hunger and weakness were a psychospiritual condition more than a physical one.
It reminds me of the story of Jesus being visited by Satan during his 40 days of fasting in the desert, or Buddha’s clash with Mara under the bodhi tree.
There was a time when I would’ve taken such stories to merely be colorful, mythic narratives, but I no longer thing that is correct.
Spiritual battles are real, and many of them play out in our bodies, which our enemy now increasingly seeks to control through the biodigital convergence.
You will face real opposition along the way, and preparation is thus important.
And in retrospect, I think I entered with too little preparation, and could definitely have done a better job of staying on target through my fast.
Also, I chose to fast in a period where we traveled a lot. This made prayer and contemplation way harder, which was suboptimal.
I was happy if I did 20 minutes of prayer in a day, though since I aspire to 2 hours of prayer, this wasn’t a good result.
Also, at one point during the fast, we visited a local farm, and a piece of meat was sitting out on a table. I cut a little piece and ate it.
Michelle turned to me looking like a big question mark, and asked “did you just eat meat?”
I snapped out of my trance, confessed that “yes!”, I did indeed eat meat, and had no idea how it happened.
It was as if something had possessed me and put me on autopilot.
Was that me in a moment of psychological weakness, or me under the influence of a hostile principality seeking to sabotage my deepening in God?
I don’t know, but it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility that it was an attack, for fasting is a weapon in the spiritual realm, as temporary pleasures are one of the enemies greatest weapons, and by foregoing them altogether, he loses influence over our lives, and in the battle for humanity, every soul matters.
Most would be surprised to find how much spiritual warfare permeates our day to day lives, showing up in our addictions, distractions etc.
The big decision I made during my fast
In prayer during the fast, one thing became clear: It is time for me to resurrect Reclaim your Inner Throne, the men’s initiation I ran for almost a decade.
It was a genre-defining training which served close to 200 men with building more integrated, sovereign lives.
God has given me a particular seed of genius for creating spiritual journeys of transformation within powerful mythic narratives, and the men loved it.
Not only did they love it, they had significant real life transformations.
Since then, I have matured a great deal in my understanding of the eternal war that plays out in spirit, and I have seen how the devil is a master at creating fictional realities in order to pull us deeper and deeper into his web of deceit.
But fictional realities can be created to support a sacred intention as well, and when done right, they can become make inroads into the enemy’s territories.
Knowing that the first Reclaim your Inner Throne initiation drew much of its power from the fact that it did become an actual territory, the resurrected Reclaim your Inner Throne will build further on this legacy.
We need a dojo for spiritual warfare where we can come together to develop spiritual authority and build bridgeheads for the coming Kingdom.
It will be a training for those who feel they may have a role to play in the endgame, as Satan’s armies pursue control over humanity through the rise of AI, virtual worlds, biodigital convergence, transhumanism and technofascism.
A world that looks uncomfortably dystopian is approaching fast—in fact it is already here—and I am inspired to provide training to those who just say no.
For it is predestined that the Kingdom of God is coming to this planet, and when we choose to listen to God’s summons, there is nothing anyone can do about it.
So yes, Reclaim your Inner Throne will be returning this autumn.
That clarity is the gift that God gave me on the fast.
And as Apostle Isi describes in her book The Fasted Life, stepping through the portal opened by a fast in a timely fashion is crucial.
For if we delay too long, God may need to find another more willing servant to carry out His divine plan.
Note: If you have questions about fasting, do not hesitate to ask. Now that I have some more experience with fasting in a Christian context, I’m better equipped to guide you in your own process. My fast was not perfectly executed, but a great start on a lifelong journey of building authority & obedience in the spirit.